WHEN DO WE START BOMBING RUSSIANS WHO ARE KILLING CHRISTIANS IN UKRAINE? - 12.29.25 - Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Why

(00:26):
isn't Trump bombing Russian terrorists scum who have been targeting
and viciously killing innocent Christians in Ukraine? Now that our
white supremacist, theocratic bandit government has gone into the crusades business,
Now that, per Trump, we've been bombing Nigeria to kill

(00:48):
Isis terrorists scum quote who have been targeting and viciously
killing primarily innocent Christians. This question for MAGA and the
Republicans who continue to enable this dictatorship. Like Marco, things
go better with Coke Rubio if that's the new standard,
We're bombing Isis terrorists scum who have been targeting and

(01:10):
viciously killing innocent Christians in Nigeria. After your latest pointless
photo op meeting with Zelensky in Florida yesterday, Trump, why
aren't you also bombing Russian terrorist scum who have been
targeting and viciously killing primarily innocent Christians in Ukraine? How

(01:35):
committed are you to this protect the Christians? Bullshit?

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Trump?

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Don't get me wrong. I do not buy into any
of the organized religious corporations. Many do good things, sometimes
many sincere people work with and for them and believe
in them. But if it's spirituality you're looking forward, just
talk to your creator or your universe, or whoever you
feel you need to talk to, and do it directly.

(02:02):
Cut out the middleman, avoid the brand names. But this
isn't about beliefs. Believe what you want, What the hell
do I care? This is about the newest Trumpian excuse.
We are now killing those who are killing Christians. If

(02:23):
that is the standard, Trump has obligated himself to start
bombing Russians today, Get going, boy, because the percentage of
Christians in Ukraine is eighty five percent. Eighty five that's
more than in Ireland. That's way more than here. We

(02:46):
may be as low as sixty five percent. And religion
in Russia is a function of the state. It is
controlled by Putin. The Russian Orthodox Church is Russia's privileged
religion and it holds virtual veto power over which other
religions can have any influence. It's almost a monopoly. So
in Russia, Sorry Catholics, sorry many Protestant faiths. I mean,

(03:11):
I know after yesterday's latest pointless meeting with poor Zelenski
in Florida and you have to give him credit. He's
playing along with this man he knows is an insane idiot.
This latest meeting that started seventy two minutes after Trump
got off the phone with Putin, and presumably Putin read
Trump his latest instructions, starting with the words keep stalling.

(03:33):
Donald after that negotiation to nowhere round eleveny billion. This
new standard in Nigeria and in South Africa. That's not
going to be the new standard in Ukraine because Trump
has no standards. He only has financial interests and being
blackmailed interests. Trump is the asshole who campaigned on resolving

(03:57):
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in twenty four hours, a twenty
four hour deadline, and yesterday, as he stood next to Zelenski,
he was asked about more deadlines, and Trump basically answered deadlines.
What are deadlines? My deadline is getting ward. Since he

(04:21):
re seized power, Trump has been remarkably consistent. He is stalling.
He talks about two weeks to this and fifty days
to that, and warning Russia about this and helping Ukraine
with that, and each individual announcement seems like some sort
of bizarre one eighty switch. The media certainly treats it

(04:42):
like that, when in fact, if you just step back
only a couple of feet and take this as a whole,
it's just one long running out of the clock on
Putin's behalf. Just throw something else against the wall. We
know Trump's good at that. Usually it's a burger with ketchup.

(05:04):
But this idea that America now exists to save those
Christians the world out there, It's like lions at the colisseum.
If this is handled right, this could interrupt the endless
cycle of Trump announcing another new policy and the rest
of the world thinking, oh, this will be resolved soon.
Because if this onward Christian soldiers thing is the deciding factor, now,

(05:26):
save the South African bars, save the Nigerian Christians, even
though the Nigerian government says nearly everybody under attack there
is Muslim. If this is Trump's great cause, Trump kind
of has to arrest any Russian diplomats or negotiators or
envoys at the next quote piece unquote stall conference, or

(05:48):
if they're on a boat, he has to bomb them,
and he has to cut Putin off, and he has
to load up them bombing runs. We have anti Christian
terrorists come to kill in Russia and faithful, suffering, martyred
Christians in Ukraine. Isn't that the same thing? Spoiler alert,

(06:12):
It's not the same thing. Trump's not going to do that,
not unless he's backed into one hell of a corner.
Christianity to Donald Trump is exactly the same thing as Judaism,
which is exactly the same thing as fundamentalists and Pentecostals
and Druids. It's a voting block, it's a bunch of people.

(06:34):
He can save time by scamming all at once rather
than individually. What's interesting is that the morning after Trump
celebrated the holiday by killing people who were killing Christians
on Christmas because he's a Nobel Peace Prize winner and everything,
but you know the peace part. The morning after, President

(06:56):
Zelenski of eighty five percent Christian Ukraine posted a video
which noted, quote, Russians are godless people who have nothing
in common with Christchristianity unquote. Maybe Zelensky sees there is
a route to get to Trump and force him to
act on behalf of his latest fanboys. Of course, what

(07:19):
Zelenski said Russians are godless people who have nothing in
common with Christianity. That used to be the official line
of the Republican Party. Russia's suppression of Christianity and its
persecution of the faithful used to be a primary campaign
tool in this country. Russia's official atheism used to be
something the Republicans used against the Democrats. Because this bullshit

(07:44):
didn't start with Trump. He just dumbed it down to
make it more effective with the Rubes and the Marks
as late as the breakup of the Soviet Union. Those
people were the godless Russians. So maybe there is something
here which supporters of Ukraine and more cynic those of

(08:05):
us who recognize that all Putin and Trump are doing
with these perpetually moving goalposts about a peace plan or
negotiations or summits is too stall to give Putin more
time to resupply his troops, and those of us who
recognize that if Putin wins in Ukraine, he will attack
again even further west in Europe, and those of us
who recognize it when first Trump and then this buffoon

(08:26):
Rubio say it's not our war. There's an ocean between us.
The usefulness of an ocean as defense was disproved on
December seventh, nineteen forty one, but apparently both Trump and
Rubio are too stupid or too impaired to realize that
you can now fly across any ocean. Those of us

(08:49):
who understand all of that, those of us who understand
that America's future depends on Russia losing everything in Ukraine
and then Putin losing control of Russia, maybe we finally
have something with which to split MAGA the way the
Epstein files How many in that box? A million? Holy crap,

(09:14):
in the same way the Epstein Files and anti Semitism
have now split MAGA. So strategically, supporters of Ukraine need
to start lying. Stop portraying the Ukrainians as victims of
Putin's aggression. Maga likes aggression, I mean Maga aar sadists.

(09:41):
Start portraying the Ukrainians as victims of terrorists scum who
have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily innocent Christians because
the terrorists scum is putin wait. Trump pardons for sale, millions,

(10:24):
changing hands, finders, fees, pardon brokers, con men like Trevor
Milton not only not rotting in prison, but also not
being forced to pay restitution of up to six hundred
and eighty million to those he defrauded. It's hard to
be shocked by anything, hard to find anything both corrupt
and new about Trump. And then here comes the Trump

(10:46):
pardon industrial complex. So new and so wait a minute,
I knew this sounded familiar. Of course, Trump presidential pardons
were allegedly available for purchase at popular prices, and there's

(11:06):
nothing new about it. They were reportedly available as of
February sixteenth, twenty nineteen, supposedly at two million dollars each,
half to Trump, half to Rudy Giuliani. I reported this
on this podcast on May sixteenth, twenty twenty three, because

(11:27):
those pardons at those prices is what a woman who
sued Juliani for sexual abuse, says Giuliani told her in
just a nine day span in twenty nineteen. She claims
she's had countless recordings of their encounters. Name was Noel Dunfi.
And I don't know if she recorded any of this stuff,
and I don't know if she's telling the truth. And

(11:48):
I have even less of an idea of whether or
not he was telling the truth, the alleged victim, Noel Dunfi.
And not for a moment do I want to seem
insensitive to her and the two year ordeals she documented
in her nauseating and lurid suit against him. I mean
reads like the script from a Fellini film, something between
Casanova and Satyricon. It is, in fact so disturbing and

(12:12):
so lurid that it is not until the one hundred
and twenty fourth numbered paragraph in her seventy page filing
that her attorney gets to the other little detail, the
other little fore taste of evil things to come. Quote.
Giuliani told Miss Dunfee about a plan that had been
prepared for if Trump lost the twenty twenty election. Specifically,
Giuliani told Miss Dunfie that Trump's team would claim that

(12:35):
there was quote voter fraud and that Trump had actually
won the election. This plan was discussed at several business
meetings with Giuliani and Lev Parnis. But back to the bribes,
back to the pardons. It was eight paragraphs and nine
days after that that Dunfee's attorney claims Giuliani quote also

(12:56):
asked Miss Dunfee if she knew anyone in need of
a pardon, telling her that he was selling pardons for
two million dollars, which he and President Trump would split.
He told miss Dunfie that she could refer individuals seeking
pardons to him, him being Juliani, so long as they
did not go through quote the normal channels unquote of

(13:19):
the office of the Pardon Attorney, because correspondence going to
that office would be subject to disclosure under the Freedom
of Information Act. For Miss Dunfee, this was understandably, utterly,
justifiably a case about how she claims, I think from
reading it, the better word is how she demonstrates how
Juliani manipulated her into sex, bullied her, abused her, committed

(13:43):
battery on her. As she alleges, her suit was remarkably detailed, dates, places, names,
hate filled Giuliani rants about Blacks, about Jews, about other groups,
all of it reeking with the kind of versimilitude that
anybody who has been around Rudy Giuliani for more than
thirty minutes out of the last thirty years would say, Yeah,

(14:03):
that's Rudy. Like everything else touching Rudy Giuliani, a walking
pile of corruption, wearing mascara to cover the bald spots.
This lawsuit got shoved off the front pages by something
worse that happened like the next day. The most recent
update I can get on this suit is from May

(14:24):
of this year, in which Giuliani had filed to get
the Dunfee lawsuit dismissed. After that nothing Sadly, what Shakespeare
wrote of as the law's delay, and he wrote it
four hundred plus years ago, has never improved in the
slightest ask Jack Smith, I will leave most of the

(14:45):
conduct Miss Dunfee's attorneys describe in the gutter with rudy
where they belong, except for paragraph one h nine, which
is as familiar to those of us who had the
misfortune to meet this sleezbag Guliani as any of the
abuses alleged, or the women manipulated, or the debts left unpaid.
His driving emotion for the length of his public life

(15:05):
has been envy, mixed with usually futile fantasies of revenge
paragraph one o nine quote. Throughout the employment and attorney
client relationship, Giuliani forced Miss Dunfie to perform oral sex
on him. He often demanded oral sex while he took
phone calls on speakerphone from high profile friends and clients,

(15:29):
including then President Trump. Giuliani told Miss Dunfie that he
enjoyed engaging in this conduct while on the telephone because
it made him quote feeder like Bill Clinton unquote just
the sleaziest almost human alive Rudy Giuliani and in the

(15:49):
final note from the Dunfee lawsuit, fueled by what she
portrays as almost NonStop consumption by Giuliani of alcohol and viagra,
I have this question, red pill or blue pill Rudy
differences to Rudy Giuliani's perversions in a story about the
Trump bribery and pardon machine is just to add some

(16:12):
color to the process and some context. This did not
start last month, although from news coverage you would think
it had. I will note also that since every Republican
accusation is a confession, the idea of invalid pardons by
Joe Biden would suggest Trump knows that if anything could

(16:32):
ever defeat the seemingly constitutionally built impregnable wall around presidential pardons,
it would be proven bribery. Because even if this most
directive crimes could not cancel out a pardon, the bribe
that led to the pardon would itself be a new crime,
a new crime by the pardon recipient and the pardon

(16:55):
broker and the bribe recipient slash pardon giver in the
current scenario, that would figure to be Trump himself. I
know that you know that, I know that. I know that,
and I'm hoping that the potential Democratic attorneys general and
US attorneys of twenty twenty nine know that. However, I

(17:18):
do find myself still wondering if the bribe brokers know that, Rudy.
Since this podcast launched the first of August twenty twenty two,
I have kept only one light of hope, perpetually lit.

(17:43):
It is the only durable truth that works one hundred
percent in favor of the forces of decency, democracy, truth, justice,
and the American way. It is the fact that Trump
and his family and his enablers and his henchmen, and
his Juliani's and his Renfields, and his media and his
MAGA are ninety nine point nine percent morons. There are

(18:09):
a few bright and therefore truly dangerous guys and gals
out there, like russ Vote and maybe Scalia, and every
once in a while it seems like Steven Miller is
one of them. But I don't know. I think this
guy has self destruct button written all over him. Also, usually,

(18:30):
even in the ones that seem smart, or at least
seem non moronic. Some push meets some shove somewhere, and
it turns out they're only intermittently not stupid, right, Susie Wiles.
So here are your latest magas stupidity updates. The Trump

(18:51):
Kennedy Center, the one he renamed and made it sound
like it's the Trump Memorial Center. For our purposes, let's
call it the Trump Memorial Kennedy Center. Turns out Trump
forgot something he forgot to buy. The website domains Trump

(19:12):
Kennedycenter dot org go, Trump Kennedycenter dot com go. They
belong to Toby Morton. Who is Toby Morton? He is
a comedy writer whose credits include South Park. Well, it
is probably not Trump's job to register those domains. It's

(19:33):
probably the job of the president of the Center. That
would be the most haplessly arrogant of all the Trump whorees.
Rick Grinnell, who has already washed out of the following
posts in the Trump dictatorships. Acting Director of National Intelligence,
Ambassador to Germany, Envoy to Serbia and Kosovo, Big Lie Salesman,

(19:54):
California Wildfire Liaison special Envoid of Venezuela, special Envoy to
free the infamous Tate Monsters in Romania, rebuild the nord
Stream Coordinator, Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions, and most recently,
interim president of the Trump Memorial Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts, and Rick forgot to register Trump Kennedy Center domains.

(20:20):
That is so many jobs Grennell has failed at that.
It's more jobs than I've had. It's like twice as
many jobs as I've had. Now, he says, the center
will sue a jazz musician who refused to perform on
Christmas Eve, Chuck Red. Chuck Redd plays the drums and

(20:45):
the vibraphone, and he said he wouldn't if Trump's name
was on the building. So Rick Grennell says he's suing
mister Red for a million dollars because refusing to play
for the furre is quote classic intolerance and very costly
to a nonprofit arts institution. Yeah, really costly. When Trump

(21:06):
says he wants to rip out all the seats at
the Trump Memorial Kennedy Center and replace them with new
ones that have marble armrests, because everybody wants to bang
their elbows on marble, and of course marble is so cheap.
You guys must be right there at the bankruptcy line. Huh.
But the real Grennell's stupidity here is that quote classic intolerance.

(21:30):
Classic intolerance, you say, because the guy won't play at
the behest of the dictatorship. Last September, Grennell invited a
group of log Cabin Republicans. That's the group of gay
conservatives who have convinced themselves that Trump's hatemongers would never
put them in camps. Grennell invited a group of log

(21:52):
Cabin Republicans to interrupt the performance of anti Trump, anti
Grennell guitarist Yasmin Williams at the Trump Memorial Kennedy Center.
So bub, take your lawsuit and your complaints about classic
intolerance and shove them. Also, you are suing a jazz
musician for a million dollars. There's a jazz musician who

(22:17):
has a million dollars. My great sustaining hope that the
Trumpsts will soon collapse under the weight of their own
stupidity was also reinforced the other day by of all people,
Brian Krassenstein. I don't have much use for the Crasenstein brothers.
They are clout farmers. They're not that bright. They probably
do not hurt the resistance materially, but they certainly don't

(22:39):
help it. But Brian has accomplished one of the greatest
trollings of the Trump era. Quote he wrote, quote Trump
is a dead man walking. Crassenstein posted that on Twitter
x again, quoting America should quote put him to sleep
unquote now it is the humanitarian thing to do unquote.

(23:04):
Oh the glass half empty. IQ boys of Magastan did
not like that one bit. There was a universal rage.
Is this the threat? Asked Gunter Eagelman TM real named
David Freeman defrocked cop with granny glasses.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Ragya hell, would you puff thumping like this?

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Are you ill? Replied Kyle Weepy Kyle Rittenhouse possible new
OZEMPIC spokesperson. Others demanded. Crasenstein's arrest or retweeted what he posted,
addressed to Cash Patel care the grand old Opry. I
guess there were responses all across the MAGA spectrum, from

(23:47):
your crazies to your crazy Russian bots. Wall Street Apes
was furious, Zeke Arkham, Buzz Patterson, Dom lucre Real, Spitfire,
Benny Johnson, all of them enraged because Crassenstein had posted
a clear incitement to violence or clear threat to Trump,
or a clear call for assassination, or or by writing

(24:09):
quote Trump is a dead man walking, America should quote
put him to sleep unquote. Now it is the humanitarian
thing to do unquote ahem. Not one of these morons
seemed to have noticed that Krassenstein was, in fact quoting
someone else, word for word, someone who had written that
Stephen Colbert is quote a dead man walking CBS should

(24:33):
quote put him to sleep unquote. Now it is the
humanitarian thing to do. Who wrote that? Well, of course,
like you didn't know, it was Trump, and Krasenstein simply
quoted him word for word, and the Trump crowd, hanging
on his every word, missed those words of Trump and

(24:57):
crashed right through the windshield when even somebody like Crassenstein
simply hit the brakes. And two final Trump stupidity notes.
Erica Kirk appeared on Fox News yesterday. Again Honestly, if

(25:18):
she had her own show, she would not be on
this often, and she was not wearing the sequined, floral
length morning dress she wore at a recent conservative conference.
Because of course, she's grieving her late husband, just like
you would by going on Fox news every day except
the day that she went and did a town hall
with that idiot Barry Weiss at CBS Big Sistar. He's

(25:39):
watching you and wearing a series of sequin dresses while
she tries to become a household name literally over her
late husband's dead body. But remember she and her family
request privacy.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
At this time.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
And then there's Stephen Miller and his wife. It only
crossed my desk the other day that the originated of
the rather stomach turning description of the hairless Goebbels as
a quote sexual matador was not the almost panoramically stupid
Jesse Waters of Fox. That was not his phrase. Instead,

(26:20):
the phrase sexual matador came from Miller's own wife, Katie,
And once again nobody's explaining what that's supposed to mean.
Sexual matador Like Stephen Miller wears a form fitting gold
outfit like some sort of nightmarish bell hop, and he

(26:41):
goes out in public in Mexico and Spain and engages
with another mammal who weighs around two thousand pounds, and
Steven Miller encourages them to charge at him. That kind
of sexual matador. Anyway, Katie Miller started the reference. But
the part I also don't get here is that evidently

(27:02):
Stephen Miller likes this, And the part I don't get
about that is Miller has lately dropped the pretext that
his hatred is about just undocumented immigrants, and it's pretty
clear now he's no longer even trying to pretend that
his hatred is anything more or less than hatred of
people of color, especially of Hispanic origin. So Stephen Miller

(27:28):
hates Mexicans, but he wants to be a matador, a
Spanish speaking sexual matador. So what does that imply. Every
once in a while, Steven Miller shouts olay and then
gets gored in the groin. Also of interest here that

(27:51):
rarest of confluences where Trump, the actual worst person in
the world twenty four to seven, wins recognition is our
worst person in the world. He is suing again for damages,
but the attorneys for twenty of the defendants in this
case have finally struck gold their demand for discovery from

(28:11):
Trump stuff he has to produce to continue in the lawsuit.
If we damaged you financially or emotionally, we have to
know how much, So you Trump, you have to give
us the before you have to give us your financial records,
and your health records and your mental health records. Now, oops,

(28:36):
that's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith
Alberman still ahead on this editiontive Countdown. What did you

(29:05):
get for Christmas? I got a baseball cap. I got
a baseball cap from Ted Turner. Of course I'm talking
about Christmas nineteen eighty two, but you'll remember I didn't
ask you what did you get for Christmas? This year?
The story of Ted Turner, my first TV job, how
it almost was my last TV job because I almost

(29:27):
had a fight with him and the CNN Sports Baseball Caps.
Next in Things I promised not to tell first Believe
it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about.
The roundup of the mis grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today's other worst persons in the world.

(29:49):
Lebron's worse just a rando on Twitter, but in the
World Championships of Self Unawareness, the new title holder ed
edge Runner seven three seven. By the way, what makes
you go online under an alias? How cowardly are you
to not use your name online unless you're in a

(30:11):
witness protection program, or there's a self defense reason and
a good one, or you're a performance artist or a satirist.
I digress. Edge Runner seven three seven is none of those.
Edge Runner seven three seven is just mad at the Pope,
Pope Leo, you know, Leo, the Sports Center fan from
the nineties, because Pope Leo defended migrants without papers, you know,

(30:36):
like that Jesus guy. Not an uncommon position, not a
smart one, but not uncommon. But the insult that edge
Runner seven thirty seven through at Leo is, like I said,
world championship grade I quote, it would be interesting to
see how this holier than Thou man behaved if thousands

(30:57):
of illegals in Italy bum rushed that city and refused
to leave the square. Look, whenever you think of popes
and churches and all that stuff. I mean, I already
went into my attitude here before the break, But my goodness,
holier than thou, It's in his job description. He's supposed

(31:19):
to be holier than thou. You called him holier than thou.
Ed if you went up to the pope and you said, hey,
you're holier than thou, he would be entitled to answer, hey, thanks,
holier than now Holy crap, the runner up worser James Trusty.

(31:41):
This is how terrified Trump and his enablers remain of
Jack Smith, and especially of the second half of Jack
Smith's final report on Trump's crime that Smith is suing
to get released publicly. You think the Epstein files are bad, Hey,
what's in that box? Ah, looks like another million Epstein documents? Well,

(32:02):
what's in that box behind it?

Speaker 2 (32:03):
Ben?

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Anyway, they are still trying to smear Jack Smith and
his prosecution of Trump, but they are running out of
people to take this position publicly. It can't always be
Eileen Cannon and just Aileen Cannon. And the fact that
they're running out of people to take this position might
give you a clue about the seriousness of what is
in part two of the Jack Smith report. James Trustee

(32:31):
has written an article for The Wall Street Journal about
Smith's prosecution of Trump and the Mari Lago search, and
it's being sold this way. In twenty seven years as
a prosecutor, I have never seen a case with so
many irregularities, with such manifest political motivation, with so many
open questions about singular treatment and poor judgment, writes Jim
trustee James to his friends. Firstly, James Trustee named by

(32:59):
parents who had a brilliant sense of irony. Secondly, everything
online about this guy that he's ever written begins with
in twenty seven years as a prosecutor, or after twenty
seven years as a prosecutor or in my twenty seven
years as a prosecutor, It's like, after twenty seven years
as a prosecutor, I really have to go to the bathroom.

(33:21):
Can you tell me where it is? I mean, everything
is how many years you've done this? Thirdly, not mentioned
in the cell for the Wall Street Journal article attacking
Jack Smith defending Trump. Trump's first attorney after the marri
Lago search was you guessed it, James Trusty. And then

(33:43):
he was on the job only a couple of days,
and suddenly he quit. Another clue as to how desperate
they are. They are down to the lawyer who quit
representing Trump in the case he's now attacking. But the
winner the worst making a rare appearance here since this
is technically about everybody in the world except him, Trump him,

(34:05):
he has hoisted himself on his own petard. You know
how he sued the Pulitzer Prize Board He sued the
Pulitzer people, claiming that because the board gave out awards
to journalists who covered Trump's connections to illegal Russian attempts
to influence the twenty sixteen election, and then refused to
revoke those awards, he claimed that defamed him, damaged him, financially,

(34:28):
caused him emotional distress, all that stuff. You know how
they say don't sue unless you're prepared for discovery. This
is what they mean by that. In response to the
Pulitzer suit, two law firms have now filed joint discovery
claims against Trump on behalf of twenty defendants. So there's

(34:51):
twenty defendants paying these two law firms, and they are
getting their flipping money's worth. He was financially, in psychologically
damaged by the Pulitzer Board. Okay, let's assume he's right
about that. Prove how much you were damaged. Give us
the before and after don the lawyers want The defense
lawyers want as part of discovery all of Trump's tax

(35:14):
returns quote from all jurisdictions, including all attachments, schedules, and worksheets,
dating from twenty fifteen to today, and all other documents
quote sufficient to show all sources of your income sufficient
to show all of your financial holdings and his liabilities,
because how are they going to tell how much he
was damaged financially if they don't know how much he

(35:36):
had before and how much after. But wait, there's more.
The psychological and physical part of damages quote to the
extent you seek damages for any physical ailment or mental
or emotional injury arising from counts one to four of
your complaint. All documents, whether held by you or by
third parties under your control or who could produce them

(35:57):
at your direction, concerning your medical and or psychological health
from January one, twenty fifteen to present, including any prescription
medications a AH, any prescription medications you have been prescribed
or have taken you want them alphabetized during a numerical
orderer by lot number for the avoidance of doubt. This

(36:19):
includes all documents concerning your annual physical examination for the record.
The law firms involved are Ballard, spar And, Atherton, Gallardi,
Mullen and Reader. And I don't know anybody at any
of those firms, but I'll endorse them right here. And
the defendants they get gold stars too, and they are
the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander and Applebauma

(36:44):
of The Atlantic, Boston Globe, longtime editor Nancy Barnes, former
president of Columbia, Lee Bollinger, author and journalist Catherine Booe.
Neil Brown, president of the Pointer Institute, the former editor
in chief of USA Today, Nicole Carroll, former Columbia Journalism
dean Steve Cole. Gail Collins of The New York Times

(37:04):
Vice President is an editor at Large of Standards at
the Associated Press. John Danizuski, Editor VP at The Philadelphia Incy,
Gabriel Escobar, UCA historian, Professor Kelly Lytel Hernandez, longtime Pulitzer
Prize Deputy administrator, Edward Klement, New York Times columnist Carlos Lozada,

(37:25):
former LA Times executive editor, Kevin Marita, Pulitzer Prize administrator,
Marjorie Miller, USC Professor viet Ton Nuen CEO and co
founder of the Nineteenth Emily Ramshaw, New Yorker editor David Remnick,
and Harvard University philosophy professor Tommy Shelby. Sponsored by the

(37:46):
Chubb Foundation. And they all want Trump's medical and financial records,
and his health records, and his mental health records in discovery,
and I hope the BBC and anybody else he's facing
a lawsuit or is facing a lawsuit from him sues
using this as their template demand and then publicly release

(38:09):
your demand for discovery on all his financial records, all
his health records, all his mental health records, all his
drug records. This is outstanding. So Trump suing for defamation
and damages but winding up getting all his own financial
and health and drug and mental health records thrown in

(38:31):
the discovery pile. Because if you're financially or psychologically damaged,
you got to show it. Or if you're emotionally damaged,
you got to show that too. Two Day's worst person
then the world. I never play the end of it.

(39:31):
I just love the end of it. Things I Promise
Not to Tell in Ted Turner. Next now here is
a post Christmas What did you Get for Christmas? Edition
of Things I Promised Not to Tell? And we take
you back a scant forty three Christmases ago. I have

(39:54):
one more story to tell you about covering the nineteen
eighty two National Football League Players strike, and this is
less about the strike itself and more about the man
for whom I covered it Ted Turner. Ted Turner had
put CNN on the air just two years earlier, and
his sports guy Bill McPhail had interviewed me for a
job as their New York sports reporter even earlier than

(40:15):
that May of nineteen eighty And when I did not
get it, I was genuinely relieved, because I was convinced
there was no way they would ever get CNN on
the air, no chance. Ever, Obviously I did not account
for Ted Turner's stubbornness. Anyway, I wound up going their
freelance in nineteen eighty one, as I have related in
some detail here, when Lou Dobbs and his girlfriend, the

(40:38):
New York Sports reporter.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
Had to get out of town fast at the existence
of missus Lou Dobbs.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
Eight months later, as the nineteen eighty two NFL strike loomed,
they had made me staff and given me a contract,
first offering me one thousand dollars less a year than
they were paying me freelance. Even CNN of nineteen eighty
two acknowledged the absurdity of that mathematical proposition. So I
was invested already whining about Ted Turner, employee of CNN
when the football player walked out on strike in September

(41:06):
nineteen eighty two, and that strike was my beat every
day from March to November. A day or so after
the strike began, we set up an interview with the
president of CBS Sports, Neil Pilson, about the effect that
the strike would have on TV Sports in general and
CBS Sports in particular. And as the camera crew and
I filed into his office, Pilson wearily said, nothing against you, guys,

(41:30):
but I've done so many interviews already about this strike
that if you actually come up with a question I
haven't been asked already, I'll give you Well. We all
leaned in towards him. Give us what the job? A
job interview? At least fifty dollars, I'll give you CBS
Sports caps man. Not exactly a job, but better than nothing.

(41:51):
So we rolled tape and I said, so, mister Pilson,
in light of the strike, do you wish CBS Sports
did not have the Super Bowl this year? As it does?
And he laughed, and he took off his mic, and
he went over to his office phone. He buzzed his assistant,
bring in three caps, will you? And he sat back down.
He said, you guys did it. Nobody asked me that yet,
and it's like the only question that really interests me.

(42:13):
You're still rolling. Neil Pilsen then proceeded to give a
lengthy and thoughtful answer about how as long as the
season was not canceled, it was probably better to have
the next Super Bowl because people would be so grateful
that after the strike they wound up playing in any way.
So now a week goes by after that interview, and

(42:33):
the bargaining sessions between the players and the owners are
taking place in a Manhattan hotel, the Lows on Lexington Avenue,
a dump with a nice lobby. All that matters to
me is the Lows with the dump and the nice
lobby is literally three blocks from my apartment. The players
and the owners just marched through a long hallway into
private rooms. That's all we see of them. It is

(42:55):
not heavy lifting. There are nice seats at least in
that lobby. But it is enlivened one day by news
that our boss, Ted Turner has asked the union if
he can come in and meet with their twenty odd
player negotiating team because he wants to pitch them on
something He was in fact due there yesterday, but was
unavoidably detained. The rumor the players told me never confirmed,

(43:20):
was that while changing planes in Chicago, Turner and an
air hostess had ensconced themselves in a dumpster or the
other version was in a janitor's closet for twelve hours
of whoopee, and that's why he was a day late. Anyway,
I walk into the Lows that morning, and if somehow
I had not been able to recognize my camera crew,

(43:41):
sure enough it is the same two guys who had
been with me at Neil Pilson's office at CBS when
I asked him the question he had not been asked before,
earning us free CBS sports caps, and the cameraman and
the deck operator are of course wearing their CBS sports caps.
And understand. In nineteen eighty two, CNN was not an upstart.
It was not the feisty outsider, It was not the

(44:03):
future of news. We were called pretend TV. It was
said that CNN stood for Chicken Noodle News. One day,
I called somebody up and asked for press credentials for
Cable News Network, and the guy said, Cable News Network.
The Ether people own the newsstands downtown. I had no

(44:24):
idea what he was talking about, so I went to
one of the newstands and I asked the guy who
owns this place? And he pointed to a plaque and
it said owned by Cabel News Company. The Cabell News Company,
owner of downtown newsstands, was better known than Cable News Network.
We got scoffed at in some arenas and venues like

(44:44):
Madison Square Garden in New York. Our crews were not
admitted because they were not in the Union, So the
CBS sports caps were an important, albeit borrowed touch of
legitimacy and dignity, especially for my cameraman and my deck guy.
So the three of us position ourselves in that long
haul in the lobby waiting for my bos lost Ted turner,

(45:05):
me holding the mic with the big red CNN logo
on the mic flag, and the crew wearing their gaudy
CBS sports caps and in Ted walks emerging from the
brilliant early autumn sunshine filtering in from behind him from
the street like this was a perfectly lit movie scene.
And he sees me and recognizes me and smiles and

(45:25):
comes over and beams hot damn, it's my CNN crew.
And he shakes my hand and we roll tape, and
I start to asking my first question, and suddenly the
joy drains from his face and he stops me.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Old it what they wearing on their heads?

Speaker 1 (45:40):
He gestures at the cameraman and the deck guy, and
I explained the baxter.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
I don't give a damn who gave him them. This
is the CNN crew. They wearing CBS sports caps. Get
them off they damn heads. And he pushes me, I
mean really shoves me and strides past us. Now, even then,
I'm five six inches taller than Ted Turner and twenty
five pounds heavier at least, And maybe I can live

(46:04):
with my employer embarrassing me in public, but I do
not have to let him shove me in front of
all the other reporters. So for a second, I think, ah,
I'm just gonna run down the hall and catch him
and horse collar the bastard from behind. About a year
into my TV career, I have already accepted that there
are positives to television, but I've also already learned nearly

(46:25):
all the negatives. And not three months earlier, I had
gone over to ABC to interview with them about going
back to do radio sports. Seems to me, given what
I know about Ted Turner, dragging him to the ground
and then quitting TV forever would be a pretty appropriate farewell.
And then one word popped in my head, Rent Ah, Right, Rent.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
So quickly I go to Plan B to be fair
in thought, if not an action, Ted Turner was right,
look pretty silly to have the CNN camera crew wearing
CBS sports caps while interviewing the founder and owner of CNN, who,
by the way, was in the newspaper constantly because he
kept saying he was going to buy CBS. Plus, I
still had a story to do that day, and that

(47:13):
crew was going to have to go back into the
room where Turner would be meeting with the players about
an hour later for the proverbial spray shot that would
give us some video to use of their meeting, and
simply having my guys take their caps off was not
going to suffice. So I ran the three blocks back
to my apartment to grab the only bit of merch
or swag produced in the first two years of CNN something.

(47:37):
They had an apparently inexhaustible supply of CNN bumper stickers.
I must have had a hundred of them in my
place alone, and there were boxes and cartons and boxes
and cartons of them in the New York bureau, which
was funny enough as it was, since I don't think
all the people who worked at CNN in New York
in nineteen eighty two owned six cars among them. Anyway,

(48:00):
I trimmed a couple of the stickers down to just
the CNN logos and raced back to the Crappy Low's Hotel,
and just as they were calling for the crews to
come in to get the spray shots of Ted meeting
with the players, I put those CNN logo stickers over
the CBS logos on my guy's caps, and to my delight,
they stuck in place a little large, but it worked.

(48:22):
Minutes later, the boys came out of the meeting room
and the cameraman was in hysterics. He wound the video
back and had me watch it through the viewfinder of
the camera. As soon as they had walked in, Turner
started to give them dirty looks, and then suddenly one
of the NFL players said, Hey, Ted, there's your crew.
There's your CNN crew. Hey, CNN over here, everybody was laughing,

(48:44):
and now Ted was beaming that them. That's my CNN crew,
all right, good work boys. When his meeting with the
players broke up an hour later, I got a message
from Ted's assistant to wait for him around a corner
from the main lobby so he could give me give
CNN exclusive details about what he was trying to sell
the players on. It was a series of exhibition games

(49:07):
so the striking players could make a little money on
the side that he could televise, and there would be
a pitch to the National Labor Relations Board that the
strike had been forced on the players by the owners,
which would have meant the players would have all become
free agents. Ted wanted them, all of them, every player
in the National Football League to sign instead with him.

(49:28):
He would create a twenty four team league. He would
give the Union half ownership of every team, he would
find backers for the other half, and all he wanted
was the TV rights. It didn't happen, obviously, but what
a breathtaking scheme. Anyway. Turner was all smiles when he
came out of the meeting to tell me before he
met with the rest of the press, and he said.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Great with the hat. Good work, but I have to
get you guys some real c and ED Sports has
for Christmas.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Ted stayed another fifteen or twenty minutes doing god knows
what with god knows whom. I didn't see any dumpsters
in the hotel, and then he left by the main
exit as the rest to the camera crews and reporters
trailed him. I went along just to see if there
was anything he hadn't told me. And as he went
out the doors to his car, he said, see overman,
and I said, don't forget the hats, and Ted Turner

(50:17):
gave me one of the dirtiest looks I have ever
gotten in my life. Sure enough, a couple of days
before Christmas, I get a call from my boss in Atlanta.
I mean, Jess got a box of one hundred CNN
Sports Truckers caps from Ted Turner's office. I don't know
what the hell this is all about, but his assistant says,

(50:37):
if we wanted to know, we should call you. I
was very proud of making the correct choice between correcting
mistake and getting us all hats and dissaulting him. There
is one PostScript. Ted talked the players into the exhibition
games I mentioned only two of them, one at RFK
Stadium in Washington, which I went to on assignment, seated

(51:00):
next to Ted Turner. He had two flash with him. Anyway,
The crowd was so small at RFK Stadium in Washington
that at one point they got on the PA system
and asked all the fans to go sit down behind
the player benches so the TV shots of the game
wouldn't show all those empty seats. The other game was

(51:21):
in the Los Angeles Coliseum. They drew even less, maybe
one thousand fans, probably more like five hundred five hundred
fans in the La Colisseum. Five hundred fans looks like
the raisins and rice pudding. But it was the name
of his ad hoc league with these games in Washington
and LA that still sticks with me forty years later.

(51:43):
Ted named it himself. I'm pretty sure he did this deliberately.
I know nobody else noticed it until I made a
big deal about it. Ted Turner called his ill fated
venture his Erzatz National Football League the quote all Star Season,
and I said, perfect. The acronym you have built for

(52:05):
it is a s S. How could I possibly have
known at the age of twenty three that Ted Turner

(52:27):
would be the most employee friendly TV owner I'd ever meet,
given that I actually met him twice, because I met
him again after he got sober, and it was like
meeting him all over again. And given how much money
he was losing in nineteen eighty two against the Curve,
he was also the least cheap when it came to

(52:47):
his employees. Any who, I've done all the damage I
can do here. Thank you for listening. Most of our
Countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray
on the guitars, bass and drums, and John Phillip schaneil
handling orchestration and keyboards. They, of course, are our musical
directors of Countdown produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and
fifthy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever,

(53:10):
Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olderman theme from
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today is my friend Kenny Maine. This program
was produced by Ted. Everything else was, as always my fault.

(53:32):
That's Countdown for Today, Day three hundred and forty four
of America held hostage again, just one and nineteen days
until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame
brained term. Unless he is removed sooner by MAGA or
Sundowning or Jeffrey Epstein or affordability or Susie Wilds or

(53:54):
Marble armrests. Here's no countdown Thursday, Happy New Year until
the next one next year. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith

(54:28):
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}WHEN DO WE START BOMBING RUSSIANS WHO ARE KILLING CHRISTIANS IN UKRAINE? - 12.29.25